Throughout his life, Art Rooney Sr. was a man known for not only his faith but his kindness to all.
As the founder of the Pittsburgh Steelers, one would have understood just a bit if he was a bit high and mighty and largely closed off like many owners during and after his time.
But that wasn’t the case.
Rooney started the Steelers franchise, then known as the Pirates, in 1933, and while the team didn’t achieve much success until the first Super Bowl in 1975, Rooney remained that grounded, down-to-earth, humble person he always was. He even would go out of his way for kind gestures just to impact the people he’d cross paths with.
Former Steelers’ punter Craig Colquitt, who was on the Steelers from 1978-84 and won Super Bowls XIII and XIV as the punter, has one such story that he still holds near and dear today.
It has to do with the moment his son, former NFL punter Dustin, met Art Rooney Sr. in the locker room on a Saturday during the 1984 season, which was Colquitt’s final one with the Steelers. During an appearance on the “Football Is Family With Jeremy McFarlin” podcast on YouTube, Craig recalled the moment that has stuck with him all these years later regarding Rooney.
Following practice, Colquitt was in the locker room getting changed and just hanging out with Dustin when Rooney walked in off the practice field. Rooney asked who the little boy was and then proceeded to take him and his father into his office. He signed a baseball for him with a kind message.
“A quick story to tell you how he was. I’m sitting in the locker room on a Saturday morning. Practice just ended, and I have Dustin with me, who’s about two and a half. And he’s running around, and Art Rooney Sr. appeared in the locker room. Evidently, he was out on the field, just walked in there, and the first thing he did was remove his cigar and said, ‘Who’s this?'” Colquitt recalled, according to audio via the show on YouTube. “And I said, ‘this is Dustin.’ And he said, ‘You all follow me.’ And I’d imitate his Irish Pittsburgh accent, but it was thick. But we followed him to his office, and he sat down at the credenza desk, turned around, and I’m kind of handling Dustin. And…Art Rooney turned back around, he had a baseball in his hand, and he signed it. ‘Dusty, you’ll be a superstar someday, Art Rooney Sr.’
“Still have it. Dustin wanted to play with it, and I managed to keep it away from him for 30 years before I ever presented it to him. So we still have it. But that’s who he was; very personal.”
What a story that is.
Ultimately, Dustin Colquitt didn’t turn out to be a true superstar, but he went on to have a nice 17-year career in the NFL as a punter, just like his father and his brother, Britton.
In that 17-year stretch, Dustin spent 15 years with the Chiefs, but in an ironic way of fate, Dustin punted for the Steelers during the 2020 season, punting in five games for the Steelers that season, averaging 43.1 yards per punt.
While Craig Colquitt has a pair of pieces of hardware thanks to an opportunity from Rooney in the ’70s coming out of Tennessee, having that signed baseball is quite the memento for not only him but his son as well.
Just a few years after that encounter in the locker room, Rooney died on August 25, 1988, at the age of 87.
There have been countless stories about the founder of the Steelers, but it’s still pretty cool to hear a unique one like the Colquitts’.
Check out the full interview between Colquitt and McFarlin below.
